ONE OF THE LARGEST COMMERCIAL FISHING ENTERPRISES RUSSIAN FISHING COMPANY HAS PLACED AN ORDER FOR SEVEN NEW FISHING TRAWLERS EQUIPPED WITH CO2 FREEZING PLANTS FROM JOHNSON CONTROLS. THE GREEN SOLUTION REDUCES COSTS FOR SHIPOWNERS AND INCREASES PRODUCTION CAPACITY BY 25 PERCENT.
“The first trawler is scheduled to be built at Tersan Shipyard in Turkey with expected delivery in June 2020, while the remaining six trawlers are ordered from Admiralty Shipyard in Saint Petersburg,” says John Bilde, Sales Manager Fishing Industry at Johnson Controls.
The company’s breakthrough in the Russian market was made possible because of the benefits of the CO2 freezing plants.
“CO2 reduces operational costs compared to other refrigerants like ammonia or R22. At the same time, the CO2 freezing plant enables faster defrosting at a lower temperature and thereby, increases the production capacity by 25 percent and improves the quality of the fish produced in the freezing plant,” he explains.
Future-proof refrigerant
In addition to increased production capacity and reduced costs, the solution enables shipowners to phase out R22 refrigerant. This is a requirement for the global fishing fleet in 2020 according to the Montreal Protocol.
”Many shipowners have yet to replace R22 units with green refrigerants even though ammonia and CO2 future-proof the fishing vessel for political regulations and ensure long-term costs-savings,” says John Bilde.
World-leading refrigeration systems
In 2002, Johnson Controls was the first company in the world to design and launch CO2 freezing plants, and since then the company has supplied the global fishing fleet with all kinds of refrigeration systems.
“The solution is a cascade system with ammonia at the high-pressure level and CO2 at the low-pressure level. This way, shipowners benefit from an evaporation temperature of -50°C along with excess pressure in the plant,” says John Bilde and adds:
“The low evaporation temperature together with the physical properties of CO2 enables a higher freezing capacity, which is necessary to produce and preserve tonnes of fish”.